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Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Water Voles from 09.06.2014

Water Vole, Arvicola amphibious

I know all the posts up to now have been from the archives as it were, but I have a lot to share and a lot of requests from people to get through... However, I am conscious that it is new photographs and recent events around the Centre which will perhaps hold more interest to many of you.

With that in mind, and to show that new photographs will be shared here too, here are some that I took yesterday of our water voles.

"Ratty" the Water Vole

The owner of the BWC, David Mills, is currently working on a side project... part of this requires photographs and he has asked me to supply them for him. I have a very long list to get through, but have broken it to stages... at the moment I am working on marsh frogs and fallow deer.

What has this got to do with water voles? Well, while I was there with the frogs yesterday, the voles were on top form (the frogs weren't :-) ), so I took a few minutes to get some photographs of them too.

Reflection

My favourite is the first one of the vole swimming... He caught me by surprise and my camera was still set for a macro I was doing of a frogs eye, I would like it to have more of the vole in focus and been lower to the water, but I still like the colour of the sky reflected in the water. Above is another reflection shot coming our of one of the artificial tunnels we put in the island for them.

Aquatic Vole

One on the bank of the pond. Water voles used to have the latin name Arvicola terrestris, which suited them well in Europe as they are often found more inland then the ones we have over here. But fairly recently they have been reclassified as Arvicola amphibious... makes much more sense for our ones.

Big Old World Out There

We currently have our second litter of voles from our island display just coming out, don't they look tiny in the tunnels!?!

Finding Natural Food

They swim to the island feeding stations we have in place for them, put there is plenty of natural food on the island too... this youngster has already taken a liking to this rush grass... Having the natural food on the island is perfect for giving them a great start for when they will eventually be released, and means they will already be aware of what a lot of wild food is.

Confrontation

We offer a very natural rabbit mix, and apple (which seems to be their favourite), on to their feeding islands every morning. Here is mum and dad having a bit of a confrontation over a bit of apple...

Mum and Kit

... mum won, but was happy for one of the youngsters to come and share with her.